Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and so on. Such networks, which are usually multiple access networks, support communications for multiple users by sharing the available network resources. One example of such a network is the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN). The UTRAN is the radio access network (RAN) defined as a part of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a third generation (3G) mobile phone technology supported by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). UMTS, which is the successor to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technologies, currently supports various air interface standards, such as Wideband-Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access (TD-CDMA), and Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA). UMTS also supports enhanced 3G data communications protocols, such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), which provides higher data transfer speeds and capacity to associated UMTS networks.
In HSPA networks, the network sends data with different transport block sizes (TBS) depending on a Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) reported by a user equipment (UE). For example, The CQI can be a value from 0 to 30 indicating the quality of the communication channel between the UE and the network. The higher the CQI index value is, the better the channel quality becomes. The network transmits data to the UE with different transport block sizes based on the reported CQI value. If the network gets a high CQI value from the UE, the network transmits data with a larger transport block size, and vice-versa. Therefore, data throughput of the communication is affected by the CQI value. More information on the CQI, for example, may be found in the 3GPP Technical Specification (TS) 25.214, Physical Layer Procedures (FDD), Release 12. The entire content of this 3GPP document is incorporated herein by reference.
As the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, research and development continue to advance the UMTS technologies not only to meet the growing demand for mobile broadband access, but to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications.